Opinion: How do I know about discrimination at top public health universities? I lived through it

As I read “More talk than action,” a new study published in the Lancet on how women and ethnic minorities are being held back in schools of public health, I relived the personal experiences that led me to leave academia.

The study, conducted by 10 female researchers, was an investigation into gender- and ethnicity-related differences in career progression at the 15 highest-ranked social sciences and public health universities in the world. The conclusions were grim: In all of the universities, even though women outnumbered men at the junior level, the representation of women declined in middle and senior academic levels. Ethnic minority women like me had a double disadvantage in their career trajectories that made them almost nonexistent at the highest